Monthly Archives: April 2013

Today we continue a discussion of Duane Elmer’s book “Cross Cultural Servanthood” which, while directed at a cross-cultural audience, has excellent principles that can be applied in all contexts. This is a review of chapter three. Part one of the discussion can be found here.

Elmer begins chapter three with this illustration:

There’s a monkey who’s taken refuge on an island while a massive typhoon rages around him and flood waters rise. While waiting for the storm to pass, the monkey sees a fish who appears to be struggling while swimming against the current. The kind hearted monkey decides to help the fish who obviously needs assistance.

The monkey, at great risk to himself, climbs a dangling limb over the spot where the fish is swimming. Stretching precariously, the monkey rescues the fish from the raging waters and hurries back to his safe spot. He lays the fish carefully next to him on the dry, secure ground. “For a few moments,” Elmer writes, “the fish showed excitement, but soon settled into a peaceful rest. Joy and satisfaction swelled inside the monkey. He had successfully helped another creature.”

While the whole illustration is told from the monkey’s point of view, we’re never given a description of his emotional state. What degree of arrogance or humility did he harbor in his heart as he “helped” the fish? But, “the fish likely saw the arrogance of the monkey’s assumption that what was good for the monkeys would also be good for fish. This arrogance, hidden from the monkey’s consciousness, far overshadowed his kindness in trying to help the fish. Thus good intensions are not enough.”

In the fall of this year, I’ll begin an online Master’s degree program. Furthering my formal education has been something I’ve wanted to do since I graduated with my bachelor’s degree and I’m excited to finally be able to do it. But…

I once observed an interaction between two people – one of whom had over six years of experience living cross-culturally and the other who had barely three months. Yet the one with three months of experience was lecturing the one with more experience about how to translate a concept into the local language. I cringed. While both people had a Master’s degree – that further education had made one willing to listen, while it had made the other feel prepared to lecture on a topic he barely knew anything about.

Most people who engage in community service or enter ministry, do so from good intentions. Yet how often do we dive into creating a new program or new outreach without stopping to ask those for whom the program is intended how they’d best be served? How often do we jump straight to teaching without first asking what our students what they need to learn? Elmer quotes from the Lausanne Willowbank report that says, “We repent of the ignorance which assumes that we have all the answers and that our only role is to teach. We have very much to learn.”

Does it give you pause to consider how hidden arrogance might be harming the very people you intend to help? How does your church or community decide which new programs to implement? Is it a top-down decision made by “us” for “them”? Or is it a process informed heavily by the stated needs of those you desire to serve?

Moving cross-culturally brought with it a whole set of dilemmas and problems I never saw coming. Some of them quite serious and some of them… well… not so much.

One thing I thought I had figured out before I moved overseas was what to do with food that falls on the floor. In the US families have their own version of what’s generally called the “three second” or “five second” rule. If something falls on the floor but is immediately picked up, it’s declared still safe to eat (despite the fact that scientifically the amount of germs on that piece of food has nothing to do with floor time!).

But when I moved to South Asia, that one-size-fits-all rule didn’t seem helpful for all of the situations I was encountering. There’s a lot more dirt on my floors here than you generally find in the US. Meanwhile, there’s also not certain Western foods I love. I found a need for a more robust guideline – something to encompass all the realities of life here. Maybe the following categories could help you too (should you ever be coming this way)…

1) Easily locally available food item. Anything purchased from the local market, bakery, or dry goods store. That chunk of potato or store-bought cookie falls to the floor and goes straight into the garbage bin. Since most days there’s enough dust on my floor to make tiny muddy footprints if you walk across it with wet feet – think about what else is probably down there. Trash it! (Alternate possibility: feed it to the local street dog/cow. What they don’t know won’t hurt them!)

2) Can be purchased semi-locally, not easy to find. For me, this includes good cheese (which I bring with me after visiting more foreigner-friendly cities), strawberries (available only a month or so out of the year), and corn chips (the purchase of which involves 45 minutes roundtrip of travel). When one of these things calls on the floor, there’s a lot to consider. When’s the next time I’ll be visiting a place I can get more from? How expensive was it at the import store? When was the last time I cleaned this particular floor? How dirty does the food look? How inconvenient would it be if I got sick by eating whatever this has picked up off the floor? (eg: am I traveling soon?)
There’s a bit of graph work involved to include all the variables…

3) Not at all local. This is rarer to have in my possession, but would include things like home baked goods sent from friends in America, cherry-flavored Jolly Ranchers (also from America)… okay, so basically anything sent from America. Also – anything that could be purchased in a larger city with import stores that I won’t be visiting anytime soon.
This is a desperate, limited category that you should be taking special precautions against dropping or spilling. Should, however, your alert reflexes fail to hinder its fall into the germy world of the floor – there is absolutely no question what you do with it. EATIT. Even if you have to nibble around a random clump of hair or piece of rat poo – it’s definitely not worth losing to a little dirt!

And those are my new, South-Asia informed guidelines on what to do with food that falls on the floor. Would you add anything?